WASHINGTON, D.C., November 28, 2018 (Thomas More Society) – Attorneys from the Thomas More Society have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision of the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals that denied their motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood against pro-life hero David Daleiden.

Daleiden is the 29-year-old undercover journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s grisly trafficking of aborted babies’ body parts and now finds himself under attack by Planned Parenthood and much of the abortion industry.

The Thomas More Society is asking the high court to apply California’s Anti-SLAPP statute to dismiss Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit and vindicate Daleiden. The statute gives defendants like Daleiden the ability to quickly end Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, known as “SLAPP” lawsuits.

“Anti-SLAPP statutes prohibit lawsuits that are intended to silence advocates for justice by intimidating them, wearing them out, and bankrupting them until they will abandon their advocacy,” explained Thomas More Society special counsel Sarah Pitlyk. “Planned Parenthood’s goals will have been accomplished if either we surrender to intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandon the cause. California and more than 30 other states have anti-SLAPP statutes because SLAPP lawsuits are, by definition, attempts to violate the free speech rights of the defendants in those lawsuits. Of course, neither we nor David will ever surrender!”

By allowing the lawsuit to proceed, the Ninth Circuit has exacerbated a widening split of opinion among the Circuits and allowed Planned Parenthood an “end run” around the First Amendment. “The panel of judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who decided this case are out of step with their peers in the First, Fifth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits,” explained Pitlyk. “Almost a dozen Planned Parenthood affiliates joined together to file a SLAPP lawsuit in an attempt to silence young David and stifle his First Amendment free speech rights. The Ninth Circuit has erred badly and we’re asking the Supreme Court to decide the issue once and for all and, in doing so, resolve the circuit split in our favor, deliver justice to David, and preserve the free speech rights of all Americans.”

Read the Thomas More Society’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, filed November 21, with the U.S. Supreme Court in Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden et al v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America et al here.

November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – As swiftly as the advertising campaign for Celine Dion’s new “gender neutral” children’s clothing line launched, judgment –– which sees intrinsic evil being inflicted upon these innocent babes – has crashed upon the ill-advised effort.

The commercial, intended to be humorous, is dark. Dion, in what appears to be an act of sorcery, blows a handful of black dust in a hospital nursery filled with babies dressed in pastel pink or blue. Suddenly, black crosses hang in the air over the children as they find themselves clothed in drab black and white onesies covered in stars and messages in big letters declaring “NEW ORDER.” Images of skulls encircle the infants’ heads.

“I’m convinced that the way this gender thing has spread is demonic,” Msgr. John Esseff told the National Catholic Register. “It’s false. I don’t even know how many genders there’s supposed to be now, but there are only two that God made.”

Msgr. Esseff, formerly a spiritual director to St. Teresa of Calcutta, has been a priest for 65 years and an exorcist in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for more than 40 years.

“The devil is going after children by confusing gender,” he continued. “When a child is born, what is the first things we say about that child? It’s a boy, or it’s a girl. That is the most natural thing in the world to say. But to say that there is no difference is satanic.”

“People behind this are influencing children to disorder,” he said. “This is definitely satanic.”

“The devil is a liar and there are huge lies being told,” added Esseff. “This is being done for money, and there is divisiveness that comes from this — marks of the devil.”

Dion worked with children’s clothing manufacturer Nununu in this effort. The new partnership calls itself “Celinununu.”

Dion and Celinununu clearly state that they want to use their clothing line to mold children’s thinking to create and adapt to a genderless world. Others might see this as a effort to brainwash young minds to accept a terrible ideology.

“CELINUNUNU liberates children from the traditional roles of boy/girl,” declares the joint venture’s new website. “We believe that an educational experience is possible through children’s clothes, because fashion builds concepts deep within our minds and changes thought patterns.”

Vatican exorcist: The devil wants to confuse children about gender

Demonic disturbances that torment individuals, called diabolical obsession, “can lead to confusion about one’s gender,” “particularly in the young,” wrote Father Gabriele Amorth, who served as the chief exorcist of Rome and founded the International Association of Exorcists. Amorth performed tens of thousands of exorcisms throughout his career.

In his book, An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels, Amorth wrote that disordered ideas about gender, especially in children, can be a sign of torment from the devil.

Amorth warned that many of the devil’s “ordinary” temptations are passed off as “modern ideas” but really serve to “unhinge the principles of the faith.”

The Dion/Nununu partnership — Celinununu — through materialism and truly odd virtue signaling, seems hellbent on seducing parents to confuse their children about gender from birth.

Interestingly, Dion’s Celinununu ad perhaps betrays dark motives. The world of the children in the video is robbed of vivid color, and they instead are swathed in dull blacks and whites.

The same thing is evident at the Celinununu’s website: The media page displays unhappy children in austere surroundings wearing drab Celinununu clothing, almost admitting children’s lives will be drained of their natural humanity and happiness as boys and girl if parents succumb to the corporation’s messaging.

November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – This Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the murder of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, a Democrat who made history as the state’s first openly homsexual elected official and has since been elevated to a martyr, despite the details of his life and death differing greatly from the popular narrative.

“On Nov. 27, 1978, Supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former police officer and former city supervisor who had clashed with Milk over LGBTQ issues,” NPR’s Scott Schafer wrote this week, after stating that Milk’s advocacy for “gay rights” had “angered many.”

Tim Fitzsimons of NBC News reported that when “Milk began to press for a city-wide ordinance to protect gay rights, his eventual killer and fellow city supervisor, Dan White, gave a quote to The New York Times, decrying the ‘demands’ of ‘large minorities.’” Over the years, various left-wing activists have explicitly claimed that Milk was murdered specifically for being gay and/or advocating LGBT causes.

According to the author of a book on the subject released last month, White actually had mixed positions on LGBT-related policies and maintained a friendly relationship with Milk before his descent into violence.

“I interviewed White’s campaign manager, chief of staff, and business partner, a gay man, who rejects this thesis,” columnist Daniel Flynn told FrontPage Magazine in an interview last month. “White occasionally supported liberal causes, including some gay-rights measures, and generally thought of Milk as a friend during his short time on the board —particularly in the first few months.”

In the interview and a 2009 piece for City Journal, Flynn details how a “cash-strapped” White had resigned from the city’s Board of Supervisors on November 10, but demanded his seat back four days later. Moscone agreed, but Milk convinced him to renege on his promise to reseat him, after which White snapped and sought revenge against two people he saw as conspiring against him.

Even more shocking to the conventional narrative is Flynn’s revelation that Milk, the subject of a fawning 2008 film starring Sean Penn, was an associate of infamous cult leader Jim Jones, the subject of a new Sundance documentary. Flynn’s new book, Cult City, details the relationship between the two men.

Jones provided Milk “with a printing press, gave him hundreds of campaign ‘volunteers,’ yielded the Peoples Temple pulpit to him, and provided free publicity to him in the Peoples Forum newspaper,” Flynn wrote. In exchange, Milk publicly vouched for him.

“Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness,” Milk wrote in a letter to President Jimmy Carter earlier in 1978 on behalf of Jones’ claims of paternity to the 6-year-old son of one of his cult members.

Jones’ exploits came to a head on November 18, 1978, when he forced more than 900 people to commit suicide in the infamous Jonestown massacre, just nine days before Milk’s death.

Milk was attracted to “boyish-looking men in their late teens and early 20s,” Randy Shilts, a friend of Milk’s who was also homosexual, wrote in a biography. “Harvey always had a penchant for young waifs with substance-abuse problems.” One of his young lovers was allegedly Jack Galen McKinley, a 16-year-old runaway from Maryland. Jones also had a relationship with a 25-year-old alcoholic named Jack Lira, who eventually killed himself.

IRELAND, November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A group of healthcare providers in Ireland are banding together to protest legislation that would force them to violate their consciences in the country’s new abortion regime.

Calling themselves Nurses & Midwives 4Life Ireland, the group is speaking out against the pending abortion legalization bill, which will implement the country’s May referendum repealing the Emerald Isle’s constitutional protection for pre-born babies. They object to the legislation forcing pro-life medical professionals to refer patients to physicians willing to commit abortions.

The group is calling on Health Minister Simon Harris to meet with nurses and midwives to hear their concerns before passing the bill, and to support amendments protecting medical workers’ conscience rights. As of Wednesday, they say they have gathered 420 signatures from registered nurses and midwives.

“We respect and defend the dignity of every stage of human life and we have a responsibility to make every valid or reasonable effort to protect the life and health of pregnant women and their unborn babies,” the petition reads. “For us as nurses and midwives participation in termination of pregnancy defined in relation to a pregnant woman, as a medical procedure which is intended to end the life of a foetus, is morally objectionable and conflicts with our conscientious commitment to life.”

“We are in the midst of an unprecedented crisis in the Health Service,” it says, “and as yet there has been no effort made by you as Minister for Health to consult the nursing or midwifery professions on the clinical implications of this bill.”

“To date, there has been minimal consultation in relation to the impact this legislation will have,” noted clinical pediatric nurse specialist Fiona McHugh, according to the Irish Examiner. The group also says it has repeatedly tried in vain to reach out to Harris.

“Section 23 of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018 covers conscientious objection,” a Health Department spokesperson told the Examiner. “It states that where he/she has a conscientious objection, a medical practitioner, nurse, or midwife shall not be obliged to carry out, or to participate in carrying out, a termination of pregnancy.” The statement does not address pro-lifers’ concern that referrals also constitute participation.

This battle over conscience rights is just one way in which pro-lifers say the new abortion regime will be much more extreme than the moderate laws promised during the repeal campaign.

The bill allows elective abortions up to 12 weeks, abortions for “risk to the life, or of serious harm to the health, of the pregnant woman” up until viability (including “mental health”), abortions at any point in “emergency” cases of “immediate risk” to the mother’s “life or health,” and abortions at any point in cases where doctors diagnose a “condition affecting the foetus that is likely to lead to the death of the foetus either before, or within 28 days of, birth.”

Harris has previously said he wants “free” abortions to be covered by taxpayers and “exclusion zones” to prevent pro-life protests around abortion centers; and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar has called for forcing publicly-funded Catholic hospitals to commit abortions. Earlier this month, a joint health committee defeated a proposed amendment to require humane burials or cremation of aborted babies.

LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP, New Jersey, November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Chick-Fil-A continues to thrive across the country, but liberals in high places remain bent on punishing it for refusing to embrace same-sex “marriage.”

Campus Reformreports that the popular chicken chain won a student survey of new meal options to bring to campus at private Rider University in New Jersey recently, but the powers-that-be dashed the student body’s hopes with an email claiming that the company’s “corporate values have not sufficiently progressed enough to align with those of Rider.”

The Associated Press (AP) adds that the school cited the “company's record widely perceived to be in opposition to the LGBTQ community,” and claimed that while excluding the option of Chick-Fil-A could be seen as a “form of exclusion,” administrators believes it’s acting “faithful to our values of inclusion.”

“It is important to me and to the University that all voices are heard,” Rider Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Jan Friedman-Krupnick said in a statement to Campus Reform. “While Chick-fil-A is among other restaurants preferenced by Rider students, there are members of the community (faculty, staff, and students) who strongly opposed the option as well [...] we carefully weigh benefits, risks and voices representative of all of our campus constituents.”

Chick-fil-A is famously operated on the Christian principles of its national leadership, including closing on Sundays, listing “to glorify God” as part of its corporate purpose, and its active charitable arm. For years, liberals have boycotted the chain due to CEO Dan Cathy’s stated opposition to same-sex “marriage” and the company’s past donations to social conservative groups such as Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

Despite Rider and other opponents’ insinuation that the company’s Christian conservatism translates to “excluding” or otherwise mistreating anyone, many homosexual employees and customers have attested to positive, welcoming experiences with Chick-fil-A.

“Rider University’s survey was recently brought to our attention, and while we respect the University’s decision, this news story represents a good opportunity to clarify misperceptions about our brand,” it read. “Chick-fil-A is a restaurant company focused on food, service and hospitality, and our restaurants and licensed locations on college campuses welcome everyone. We have no policy of discrimination against any group, and we do not have a political or social agenda. More than 120,000 people from different backgrounds and beliefs represent the Chick-fil-A brand.”

Rider student Julia Pickett, president of the campus Young Americans for Liberty chapter, told Campus Reform she recognizes Rider’s right as a private institution to exclude Chick-Fil-A but considers the decision unfair.

“They sell chicken, so as far as I am concerned that should be the focus,” she said. "I think that the administration of Rider felt that having Chick-Fil-A on campus would cause unwanted controversy and felt that the easiest fix was to find another restaurant. I wish they would be honest about it though instead of trying to cover it as a deep offense to the school.”

NIGER, November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The government of Niger has shut down two facilities run by the UK-based Marie Stopes International (MSI) for committing abortions in defiance of a 2006 pro-life law.

Currently, Niger only permits abortions deemed necessary to save a mother’s life, but a government inquiry determined that MSI locations in the capital of Niamey and city of Maradi had been engaged in "manual vacuum aspiration [abortions] for a fee of 30,000 CFA francs (46 euros/$52)," the Daily Mailreports.

"We have decided to close this charity on grounds of a 2006 law which bans abortions," Niger's Health Minister Idi Illiassou said Tuesday. "Our inquiries have shown that this non-governmental organisation is enabling the voluntary interruption of pregnancy," something MSI’s agreement with the government "does not authorise."

The health ministry also says it will pursue legal action against people involved in the illegal abortions, and that police are currently looking for MSI’s "accomplices" in Niger, who have fled.

MSI has not yet commented on the situation, but its "Where We Work" page for Niger suggests it only provides contraception in the country (contraception is regularly framed as an alternative to abortion, but several methods actually function by killing already-conceived embryonic humans).

Niger’s move follows a decision by the Kenyan government earlier this month ordering Marie Stopes to "immediately cease and desist offering any form of abortion services in all its facilities within the republic." The move was a response to suspicions that MSI was trying to get around the country’s pro-life laws with advertising hinting at its willingness to commit abortions. The pro-life group CitizenGo Africa is still working to drive MSI out of Kenya entirely.

Marie Stopes was forced to close hundreds of locations across Africa this year as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump reinstating and expanding the Mexico City Policy, now called Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, which bans foreign aid money to any entities that commit or promote abortions.

Pro-life club challenges in court university’s $17,500 ‘security fee’ to run campus event

November 28, 2018 (JCCF.ca) – The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms appeared before the Court of Appeal of Alberta in Edmonton on Wednesday November 28 on behalf of Amberlee Nicol, Cameron Wilson, and the student club UAlberta Pro-Life. Their court application challenged the University of Alberta decision to impose a $17,500 “security fee” as a condition of peaceful expression on campus. In the case of UAlberta Pro-Life v. University of Alberta, the students also challenged the University’s decision to condone violations of the Code of Student Behaviour directed against the pro-life club in March of 2015.

The Court of Appeal is being asked to overturn the ruling of the lower court, which upheld the University of Alberta’s behaviour in relation to two separate incidents.

The first decision concerns the University’s choice to condone violations of the Code of Student Behaviour by students who, in March of 2015, physically obstructed and blockaded a display on campus that was authorized by the University. The Code of Student Behaviour expressly prohibits disruption, obstruction and inappropriate behaviour. In its filed Brief, the University argues that a loud, unruly, physically disruptive mob should be entitled to shut down campus events, as long as the mob is non-violent. The U of A is defending its decision not to discipline any of the students who blockaded the display. The Code states that its purpose is upholding the freedom to speak, study, learn, write and publish, in the pursuit of truth. The Code states that for these freedoms to exist, “it is essential to maintain an atmosphere in which the safety, the security, and the inherent dignity of each member of the community are recognized.”

The U of A maintains that students who physically obstructed a stationary display with sheets and banners, making it nearly impossible for a campus club to express its opinions, were legitimately exercising their own freedom of expression. However, in March of 2015, campus security repeatedly told the blockaders that they were violating the Code. Further, then-president Indira Samarasekera issued a public statement that the suppression of unpopular views would not be tolerated.

The U of A argues that freedom of expression encompasses all behaviour short of violence. But the University’s own Code bans not only violence, but inappropriate behaviour, such as disrupting classes and obstructing university-related functions. The Code serves to curtail “behaviours which if left unchecked would, to an unacceptable degree, infringe upon the freedoms described above and thus threaten the proper functioning of the University.”

The second decision being challenged by the students is the University’s demand that the students pay a $17,500 security fee if the students want to set up a display again in the future.

This case was heard by the Court of Queen’s Bench on June 8 and 9, 2017. On October 11, 2017, the Court upheld the decision of the University of Alberta to impose the $17,500 “security fee” as a condition for the campus club UAlberta Pro-Life to set up a stationary display on campus. The judge further upheld the University’s decision to condone violations of the Code of Student Behaviour directed against the pro-life club in March 2015.

On October 12, 2017, UAlberta Pro-Life announced it would appeal the Court’s ruling, with a hearing date scheduled for November 28, 2018. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) was awarded leave to intervene on October 29, 2018.

“The University is effectively censoring students who wish to convey an unpopular message that no person is required to accept or agree with,” stated Calgary lawyer John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre.

“Rather than enforcing the University’s own provisions against physically obstructing campus events, the University blames the victims of this misconduct,” continued Carpay.

Further background information about this case, including all court documents, is available at JCCF.ca.

6-year-old boy forced to live as a girl while mom threatens dad for not going along

DALLAS, Texas, November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A six-year-old Texas boy is being dressed and presented as a girl by his mother; at the same time, she is threatening the boy’s father legally for not going along with her plan for their son to live as a girl.

James lives as a girl when with his mother, but when with his father and given the choice, the six-year-old boy lives as a boy.

Jeffrey Younger is currently prohibited by court order from affirming in any way his son’s sex, including imparting Christian teaching on gender and sexuality to James.

In addition to the medical and psychological risks to children associated with so-called gender transitioning, the case has implications for parental rights related to religious freedom, freedom of speech, and due process.

Anne Georgulas has charged Younger, her ex-husband and James’s father, with child abuse for not affirming their son as a transgender “girl,” according to courtdocuments.

She has also sought restraining orders against Younger, she is trying to terminate his parental rights, and also seeks to compel Younger to pay for James’s visits with a transgender-affirming therapist and for medical procedures to “transition” James to a girl.

The controversial “treatment” could include hormonal sterilization that could begin in as soon as two years when James turns eight, in preparation for James to later have “sexual reassignment” surgery.

James’ mother has changed her son’s name to Luna. She dresses him in a girl’s clothing, shoes, and makeup, and James uses the girls’ restroom at school.

The court has awarded her the sole right to consent to psychiatric and psychological treatment of James and his twin brother Jude, rendering the boys’ father unable to get a second opinion. Younger is even prohibited from cutting his sons’ hair, having been reported by a teacher to Texas Child Protective Services for giving James a haircut.

Since the cost for psychological and psychiatric treatment of children is considered child support in Texas, a website on the case created by friends of the family says, and current Texas statutes being what they are, Younger could be “forced to pay for the sexual mutilation of his own son.”

When James’s mother Georgulas, who is a pediatrician, took James for counseling, she picked a gender transition therapist who diagnosed him with gender dysphoria. But Walt Heyer, a former transgender and advocate for those experiencing sex change regret, notes in an article for The Federalist that James does not fit the criteria for the condition.

Heyer’s piece has brought more attention to the case.

To be diagnosed with childhood gender dysphoria, a mental conflict between a person’s biological sex and their perceived gender, a child must be persistent, consistent, and insistent about being the opposite sex.

While James’s mother is “all in” on socially transitioning the boy, Heyer writes, providing only female clothes and enrolling him in school with a girl’s name, James exhibits no signs of gender dysphoria when with his father or others, choosing to dress and live as a boy.

“The fact that James changes gender identity depending on which parent is present makes the diagnosis of gender dysphoria both dubious and harmful,” Heyer said.

Furthermore, he writes, the transition therapist has observed as well that James is not consistent, insistent, or persistent in the desire to become “Luna.”

“The glaring disparity between a child’s preferred identity when in the presence of one parent versus the other should cause a therapist to reassess, perhaps nullify the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and terminate any steps toward transition,” said Heyer. “But in the case of James, this hasn’t happened.”

“James clearly does not have gender dysphoria,” Cretella told LifeSiteNews.

“According to the pro-transgender pediatricians themselves, a child is allegedly ‘trans’ if he consistently and persistently insists he is a girl,” she said. “Well, when James is away from his mother, he consistently and persistently insists that he is a boy.”

Heyer learned of James’s case recently while in the area for a speaking engagement. In his article he chronicled specifics of this disparity in how James acts, with accounts from Younger, family friends, and a pastor who knows the family.

What James is consistent about when he’s not with his mother is that he rejects the idea that he is “Luna girl.”

“James exhibits no desire to be ‘Luna’ the girl except when he is with his mother,” Heyer said. “The boy’s behavior offers a stinging rebuke of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria.”

“This by all accounts is not a true or clinically correct diagnosis of gender dysphoria,” he continued. “Yet the therapist stands by her diagnosis and continues to keep ‘Luna’ on track to gender transition.”

“James['s] precious young life hinges purely on the diagnosis of gender dysphoria by a therapist who wraps herself in rainbow colors, affirms the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and dismisses evidence to the contrary,” Heyer said. “Remove the ‘rainbow’ from James[’s] diagnosis, and it crumbles under the weight of the criteria for the diagnosis of gender dysphoria.”

Cretella offered a possible explanation for why mothers may push their sons to try to live as girls.

“Some mothers who force their sons to impersonate girls suffer from ‘gender mourning,’” she said.

“Drs. Kenneth Zucker and Susan Bradley, world renowned experts in the treatment of childhood gender identity disorders, described encountering some mothers who so desperately wanted a girl, that they entered a profound state of depression after bearing only sons,” explained Cretella. “The mothers’ depression was gradually alleviated only by one son acting in an effeminate manner or allowing her to dress him as a girl.”

Heyer warned that an authentic diagnosis is vital for the sake of the child.

“The diagnosis is critical,” he said, “because labeling a child with gender dysphoria can trigger a series of physical and mental consequences for the child and has legal ramifications in the ongoing custody case. Get it wrong and young James’s life is irrevocably harmed.”

“It’s up to the adults to observe the child carefully,” said Heyer, “consider and question the grey areas, and ultimately guard innocent children against hasty diagnoses and conclusions about something so fundamental as their gender identity.”

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Most Americans would likely expect decorating the White House for the Christmas season to be a rare exemption from the hostility of 2018 politics, but with Donald Trump in office even holiday traditions have become a political target.

This week, First Lady Melania Trump unveiled the annual holiday decor for the Trump family’s second Christmas in the White House, featuring red topiary trees made from cranberries and red berries, gingerbread recreations of various D.C. landmarks, and an 18th-century nativity scene originally given to the White House under the Johnson administration.

But rather than enjoying the White House’s innocuous holiday makeover, numerous left-wing figures are instead assailing Mrs. Trump with some of their most hyperbolic rhetoric yet.

The Washington Posttweeted that the decorations “induc[e] flashbacks to phantasmal nightmares from our shared cultural memory” of the Trumps’ first presidential Christmas decor, which liberals similarly attacked as “nightmarish” and “desolate.”

It’s still a month until Christmas, but at the Trump White House, it’s never too early to start inducing flashbacks to phantasmal nightmares from our shared cultural memory. https://t.co/6AQs0QpxJa

“Perhaps determined to continue signaling disregard for her critics, Trump has repeated the idea of horror-tinged White-House decor in at least one corner of the place, lining an entire hallway with blood-red Christmas trees that immediately reminded gawkers on social media of fun holiday movies,” Vox’s Aja Romano writes. “Like Stanley Kubrick’s Christmas classic The Shining!”

From wreath bows to Santa Claus’ red suit, red is of course one of the two colors most associated with Christmas, yet Romano not only collected numerous tweets invoking everything from pig’s blood to The Handmaid’s Tale, she claimed the Left’s reaction “speaks to the broader polarization between the public and the presidency, and the sense that the White House itself has become a visual representation of what many people view as the real-life horror being carried out by the Trump administration.”

“Perhaps this is all part of a clever conceit, a conceptual representation of Christmas as a story of contradictions,” Slate’s Christina Cauterucci writes, “a pregnant virgin, a king born in a stable, and a vengeful adulterer casting himself as the savior of a holiday celebrating the Messiah’s birth.”

The Daily Wire has compiled more reactions, with Paul Bois commenting that they go “beyond mere differences in taste and into pure ‘Mean Girls’ territory.”

Vice’s Eve Peyser called the decor a “circle of hell Dante could never have dreamed up,” fitting the “bleakness of the Trump era.” Vanity Fair’s Kenzie Bryant wrote that the stylings displayed a “touch of menace,” particularly the trees “dyed with what I assume is liberal blood a-boiling."

Daily Caller columnist Benny Johnson had a different reaction to the decorations, which he saw up close during a private tour. Johnson attributed the hostility to the “confirmation bias of liberal reporters who cannot bring themselves to find a single shred of happiness or joy in anything that the Trump family does.”

“There was something magical about the 200-year-old house – done up in grand, traditional Christmas fashion,” he wrote. “Every room of the White House was open and glowing. The rooms were dripping in history and twinkling Christmas lights. The halls were decked. To have the liberty to [wander] the rooms freely at night, with nothing but the glow of Christmas lights illuminating, is an experience.”

Johnson suggested that liberal reporters “apply for a credential and go look at them yourself” to see if the decorations are “actually horrifying? Scary? From Hell?” With any luck, he concluded, the “media’s small heart” could grow “three sizes that day.”

Police search office of US bishops’ president for evidence of abuse cover-up

HOUSTON, Texas, November 28, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – More than 50 members of law enforcement agencies arrived at the offices of Cardinal DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston chancery searching for “secret archives” related to clergy sexual abuse.

According to multiplemediareports, the team entering the building consisted of members of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, Texas Rangers, and Conroe Police officers.

“Nearly 50 investigators from ⁦Conroe Police⁩, Texas Rangers and ⁦Montgomery, [Texas District Attorney Office] on scene, executing search warrant at Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston,” said Roglaski in another tweet.

“Doubly significant as the home-base of USCCB President Card DiNardo, Houston Chancery served with prosecutor warrant for files this morning,” noted Rocco Palmo of the Whispers in the Loggia blog.

Doubly significant as the home-base of USCCB President Card DiNardo, Houston Chancery served with prosecutor warrant for files this morning – per local TV, early 2000s abuse case in focus: https://t.co/oMUVVnMpYahttps://t.co/CaDVcuVs0G

The District Attorney’s Office indicated that were looking for documents in connection to the criminal case of Fr. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez who was recently charged with 4 counts of indecency with a child.

“A man and a woman claimed they were abused as teenagers by LaRosa-Lopez between 1998 and 2001 at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church,” according to the KHOU report.

“Both people accuse Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who oversees the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, of not doing enough to stop La Rosa-Lopez,” continued the report. “One of them said DiNardo promised her that the priest would be removed from any contact with children, only to later discover that LaRosa-Lopez remained in active ministry at another parish, St. John the Fisher in Richmond.”

Tyler Dunman of the Montgomery County D.A.'s office said, “We will take any document o[r] piece of information related Father Manuel La Rosa Lopez or involving any other criminal activity," according to Fox10Phoenix.com.

This morning, the District Attorney of Montgomery County executed a search warrant for records and information related to an ongoing investigation. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston continues to cooperate, as we have since the outset, with this process. In fact, consistent with Cardinal DiNardo’s pledge of full cooperation, the information being sought was already being compiled. The reporting of a “secret archives” is merely a Church term pertaining to confidential documents kept in a secure manner for the protection of the privacy of individuals — not unlike medical records. Pending additional information or developments, the Archdiocese will have no further comment on this ongoing investigation.

[R]egarding Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez, we met with his male accuser in August 2018 to hear about his complaint which dates back to the late 1990s. After our meeting, Father La Rosa-Lopez was removed from ministry. The law requires that child abuse allegations are reported to either Child Protective Services or law enforcement. While we reported this allegation to CPS, we have reviewed our procedures and in the future we will contact both law enforcement and CPS simultaneously. We continue to cooperate fully with this investigation.

As other media outlets have reported, two of our other priests remain in ministry who have each been accused of sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s and 1980s. Both priests denied the allegations, and each accusation was reviewed by the Archdiocesan lay review board comprised of individuals with backgrounds in law enforcement and mental health, who after reviewing the facts, recommended that both priests be allowed to continue in ministry. These are the only accusations made against either priest who have each served more than 40 years in the Archdiocese.

This Archdiocese takes every allegation of wrongdoing brought to our attention seriously, and is fully cooperating — and will cooperate — with any and all investigations related to the clergy abuse of minors. In that sense, the Church of today is different than the Church of the 1970s and 1980s. We recognize the only way to resolve the abuse crisis and restore trust with the faithful is to address any and all accusations of abuse squarely and transparently. While the Church as a whole has made important strides especially since 2002 in addressing this evil, we still have important work to do. We can, and will, do better.

Earlier this month as the USCCB’s Annual Fall Assembly kicked off in Baltimore, DiNardo shocked the gathered prelates as he informed them of a last-minute directive from the Vatican telling the U.S. bishops to hold off on voting on two measures aimed at addressing the sexual abuse crisis in the U.S. Church.

DiNardo had promised in August that the Conference would address the abuse scandal.

In September, DiNardo led a small team of U.S. prelates to Rome to meet with Pope Francis, hoping that the Pope would agree to an apostolic visitation aimed at investigating the Archbishop McCarrick abuse allegations, but their efforts were rebuffed.

Cardinal DiNardo has served as president of the USCCB since November 2016.

China’s capital gears up to surveil, rate all residents’ behavior by 2020

BEIJING, China, November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The Chinese government’s plan to monitor and rank its one billion-plus residents based on “social credit” looms. The capital city announced plans last week for a lifetime points system to rate the social behavior of each of the 22 million people living there.

Beijing will compile data from numerous departments to either punish or reward its citizens based on their actions and reputations, Bloomberg reports, with the program set to be in place by the end of 2020.

The plan was posted November 19 on the Beijing municipal government’s website in a report dated July 18.

The program intends for individuals with better social credit to get “green channel” benefits, whereas those who violate laws or commit other prescribed infractions will face obstacles in many normal activities.

Beijing’s plan is one of more than a dozen in other Chinese cities and part of a planned Chinese state social credit system. According to Bloomberg it is the most ambitious yet.

The plan will entail enhancement of blacklist systems so those determined to be untrustworthy will be “unable to move even a single step.”

The different municipal agencies will connect their databases to have a more in-depth view of each resident’s dealings across a range of services. The program will require agencies within tourism, business, and transit to work together.

The Zhejiang Province’s capital city of Hangzhou in East China implemented its personal credit system earlier this year, Bloomberg’s report said, rewarding “pro-social behaviors” like volunteer work and blood donations and punishing such things as violations of traffic law and those charging under-the-table fees.

As of the end of May, people with bad social credit in China had been blocked from booking airline and high-speed train travel, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

Business Insider reported late last month on China’s impending social credit system, first announced in 2014, and how it was affecting citizens.

In addition to the millions of Chinese restricted from booking airline travel, three million people have been barred from getting business-class train tickets.

Residents of China may also find their Internet speeds stifled for social infractions. Among the things subject to scrutiny in the social credit system are the timely paying of bills, spending too much time playing video games, making frivolous purchases, social media posts and spreading fake news.

Seventeen people who refused to perform military service last year there were banned from enrolling in higher education, applying for high school or continuing their studies. People who declined military service were also banned from some holiday locations and hotels.

In July, a Chinese university denied entry to an incoming student because his father had a bad social credit score.

Management jobs in state-owned companies and big banks would be off-limits for those deemed to be "trust-breaking" individuals.

The city of Jinan in eastern China put a social credit score for dog owners in place in 2017, with points at risk if their dog is walked without a leash or caused trouble in public. Losing all of one’s points means losing one’s dog and being required to take a test on pet ownership regulations.

Being publicly named as a bad citizen in China’s social credit system would get one on the blacklist, which companies are encouraged to consult prior to hiring people or awarding contracts.

Business Insider provided a link to a prototype blacklist already in use to punish people.

The report also included a video posted by freelance journalist James O'Malley on October 29, showing an announcement on a Beijing to Shanghai bullet train that warned passengers not to misbehave — or their "behavior will be recorded in individual credit information system."

The advance of the Chinese government’s social monitoring of its people comes amid ongoing controversy over the September 22 “provisional agreement” between the Vatican and Chinese regime on the appointment of bishops, largely regarded as destructive to the faithful underground Catholic Church in China.

DETROIT, Michigan, November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A Michigan judge has dismissed key charges against a doctor accused of female genital mutilation after finding a federal ban on the practice unconstitutional.

The U.S. Congress outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) in 1996, but Judge Bernard A. Friedman ruled last week that it didn’t have the authority to do so. He stated that such regulating practices were a state responsibility and outside the purview of the federal government.

To save vulnerable girls from FGM, individual states will have to enact their own legislation. Currently 27 states have banned the practice.

According to The New York Times, the case against Drs. Jumana Nagarwala and Fakhruddin Attar, two assistants, and the four mothers of the mutilated girls was the first legal challenge to the 22-year-old law. Dr. Nagarwala is female.

The defendants were Shiite Muslims, members of the Dawoodi Bohra sect that performs FMG, traditionally when the girls are seven years old. Nagarwala was accused of performing the ritual; Attar of allowing Nagarwala to use his premises, the now-closed Burhani Medical Clinic, in Livonia, Michigan to do so; and Farida Attar and Tahera Shafiq of assisting Nagarwala.

FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia, is typically committed without anesthesia. It’s unclear if the Michigan FGM practitioners used anesthesia.

Nagarwala, then working at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, was arrested in April 2017. Lawyers argued that the Dawoodi Bohra ritual is only a “nick” and doesn’t include slicing off parts of the girl’s genitalia, as in other forms of FGM.

According to a recent study, up to three-quarters of women in India’s Dawoodi Bohra community have undergone FGM. Although it is not mentioned in the Koran, the “khafd” procedure is considered a religious obligation and in some cases a cultural one. The practice is common in parts of Africa as well; the UN reports that in Somalia, 98 percent of women aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM. In Guinea, that number is 97 percent, and in Djibouti it is 93 percent.

“More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East[,] and Asia where FGM is concentrated,” the World Health Organization reports. “The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries the Middle East and Asia, as well as among migrants from these areas. FGM is therefore a global concern.”

In his judgement, Friedman called FGM a “despicable” practice and “a criminal assault.” However, he found that Congress cannot enact a statute against FGM because “as the the Supreme Court has stated, the federal government has no ‘plenary police power’...and ‘the clearest example of traditional state authority is the punishment of local crime activity.’”

“Federalism concerns demand that this division of authority between the federal and state governments be respected,” he continued.

Friedman also quoted the Supreme Court in saying that “[a] criminal act committed wholly within a State ‘cannot be made an offense against the United States, unless it have some relation to the execution of a power of Congress, or to some matter within the jurisdiction of the United States...’”

The judge rejected the argument that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause authorized Congress to ban FGM as interstate economic activity, concluding “there is no suggestion that the procedure is done for money,” nor “is there any suggestion that this ‘service’ is offered within anything approaching an established interstate market.” Modern courts have generally adopted a far broader view of the Commerce Clause that empowers regulating a wide variety of state activities.

According to the court documents, four of the alleged nine victims were residents of Michigan, three of Illinois, and two of Minnesota. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that the Minnesota girls were seven years old at the time they were hurt.

Friedman dismissed all charges against Tahera Shafiq and three of the mothers involved. Dr. Nagarwala is still charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Dr. Fakhruddin and Farida Attar and one of the mothers are also still charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

The government has provided a helpline for American girls and women who are either at risk of FGM or have already suffered it.

The U.S. Department of State writes, “If you believe you are at risk of FGM/C [circumcision] or have undergone FGM/C, have questions about FGM/C, have information about someone who is performing FGM/C in the United States, or know of someone who may be at risk of having the procedure done here or outside the United States, please contact this number for additional information about available resources:

Transgender tyranny is the literal definition of delusional

November 28, 2018 (Turning Point Project) – An Ohio college professor who refused to comply with a male student's request to be addressed as "ma'am" instead of "sir," was ordered by the university to comply with the student's wishes.

When a Florida middle school gym teacher refused to participate in a plan to allow a female student who identifies as a boy to use the boys' locker room, he was threatened with transfer to another school.

As far as I know, the Ohio and Florida administrators have not yet been treated for their delusional thinking, yet their convictions do fit the standard definition of a delusion – "a false belief or wrong judgment held with conviction despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary." The bitter irony of our times is that the clear-minded professor and the intellectually honest gym teacher are more likely to be ordered into therapy than their fact-challenged bosses.

G.K. Chesterton observed that a madman is not someone who has lost his reason, but rather someone who has lost everything except his reason. A madman may reason quite logically from his premises, but if one of his premises is that he is the Emperor Napoleon, then there's no point in trying to follow his argument. The madman, said Chesterton, has not necessarily lost the ability to think in a straight line. What he has lost is his good judgment and sense of perspective – in short, his ability to see things as they are. The self-evident or learned-by-experience truths of life that healthy people grasp elude him.

One truth that the vast majority of human beings quickly grasp is that men and women are different. Long before anyone knew anything about X and Y chromosomes, everyone understood this basic fact.

Thanks to modern science, this fact is now more solid than ever. It's demonstrably true on the hormonal, chromosomal, and anatomical levels that men and women are different. Therefore, the idea that one becomes the opposite sex simply by wishing it so is truly a delusion. But it will seem less of one if a great many people share in the same delusion. Moreover, if those who don't share the belief are too cowed to contest it, the delusion eventually becomes an "official" lie. You may not believe it, but if you want to keep your job and avoid a lawsuit you pretend to go along with it.

One group that seems willing to go along with the pretense is that of the Catholic bishops of Scotland. The Scottish government has accepted 33 recommendations from an LGBTI (the "I" is for "intersex") Inclusive Education Working Group. The recommendations are meant to ensure that LGBTI inclusive education will be "embedded" in the curriculum. "Embedded"? This sounds kind of permanent. One thinks of Ben Nevis embedded unmovably in the Grampian Mountains of the Scottish Highlands; it's there and it's going to remain there, and there's not much you can do about it.

Since the vast majority of Catholic schools in Scotland are state-funded and state-controlled, most of Scotland's Catholic schools will be expected to go along with the new "embedded" curriculum. How are the bishops responding? A spokesman for the Scottish bishops had this to say:

The Catholic Church welcomes any recommendation that will help to ensure that pupils and school staff are properly equipped to challenge and eradicate prejudice-based bullying within schools and wider society in accordance with the law.

All of which sounds like a roundabout way of asking, "How high do you want us to jump?" What the bishops don't seem to grasp is that they themselves are the object of "prejudice-based bullying." The Scottish government obviously has a prejudice against the Catholic Church's teachings about sex and it plans to force Catholic schools to renounce this particular teaching – if not in word, then in practice. It seems unlikely that bullying will ever be eradicated from Catholic schools in Scotland, but it seems quite possible that the Catholic faith will.

This seems like a good start. Let's hope that the administration succeeds in bringing a modicum of reality back to the schools and society. Otherwise, our society faces a descent into madness. I'm speaking here not of clinical forms of mental illness as defined by the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but of madness in the sense of an obsessive pursuit of an unrealistic goal without any regard for the damaging consequences.

Of course, such utopian projects need to be incubated within a totalitarian system. Why? Because only a totalitarian culture or subculture can force people to collude with obvious lies.

Take the Ohio professor: The university administration demanded, in effect, that he lie about the nature of reality. The requirement that one address a "sir" as "ma'am" is, in principle, not at all different from the demand that one acknowledge that two plus two equals five. As Winston Smith, the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty Four, realizes:

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.

Just as the totalitarian society can demand that one collaborate in lies, it could demand other kinds of immoral behavior in the name of the new "morality." The Florida gym teacher refused to continue to supervise the boys' locker room because, in the words of his counsel, "Robert will not knowingly place himself in a position to observe a minor female in the nude or otherwise in a state of undress." For refusing to act against his conscience, the school system threatened to transfer him to another school as punishment. Yet, if he had complied with the administration's orders and the changeable girl had a sudden change of mind about who she was, the coach could easily find himself facing charges of voyeurism. Under the new rules of the game, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

We often hear it said that we are in danger of becoming an Orwellian society, but in many respects we already are. One only has to look at the Orwellian inversions of reality that are already being enacted in our schools – and in Scotland's schools as well.

In addition to welcoming the LGBTI's 33 recommendations for "LGBTI Inclusive Education," the Scottish bishops said that they hoped "that the impact of these recommendations will be positive for all..." One can imagine that when their Scottish chiefs demand that two plus two equals five be "embedded" in the curriculum, the bishops will manage to see the positive side of that equation, too.

This article originally appeared in the November 20, 2018 edition of Crisis. It is reprinted here with permission from the Turning Point Project.

How pro-family Canadians can stand up to provincial govts imposing LGBT indoctrination

November 28, 2018 (REAL Women of Canada) – One of the most important issues we have to resolve at this time is the attempt by the liberal left "progressive" provincial governments to usurp the role of parents. They are doing so by trying to instill in our children, by way of the education system, the values of the government, thus eradicating the values of parents. That is, they are trying to intellectually condition vulnerable children not only for the present, but also for the duration of their lives, by indoctrinating them to accept "progressive values". This indoctrination separates the children from their own family values, such as cultural and religious beliefs. Such changes will be to the advantage to these governments in later years when these children, as adults, serve as agents of change for the government's future "progressive" policies by diminishing opposition to them.

Each child is unique. They reflect their widely differing backgrounds. They are also the future of any government. This is why the left wing, "progressive" governments are using children as the vital tool to change society to their advantage. Nowhere is this attempt more blatant than in regard to the sex-education curriculum being forced on children in some of the provinces.

Provincial Sex-education Curricula

Sex-education curricula are social engineering propaganda tools that target children. They are put forward under the pretense that they are addressing anti-bullying in the schools, supposedly to protect the safety, respect and acceptance of all students. If so, why are these curricula centered on LGBTQ children and their supposed needs, ignoring those of all the rest of the children?

These curricula, in effect, expose children to the politics and acceptability of sexual activity such as homosexual and gender identity (transgenderism). They also promote sexual activity which separates sexuality from marriage and parenting.

"Progressive" governments argue that they have a responsibility for the education of children in their province. It is obvious, however, that sex-education differs markedly from other subjects, such as mathematics which is factual and neutral. Sex-education goes to the very core of a child's existence. It is neither neutral nor objective as there are widely differing opinions on this issue within different communities. The disabled, Aboriginals, Hindus, Christians, Orthodox Jews and Muslims – all of whom make up the mosaic of Canadian society – have their own established values, which are being ignored.

Why should their views be ignored and their children propagandized into a single state-determined value system?

Ontario

The lesbian Liberal premier, Kathleen Wynne, together with her Deputy Minister of Education, who subsequently was found guilty and jailed for child pornography, developed, without parental consultation or knowledge, an inappropriate sex-education curriculum. Teachers' unions and the mainstream media support it unconditionally and are demanding that the program continue to be taught in the province's schools despite the concerns of parents.

The Progressive Conservative government in Ontario, elected in June, 2018, is, at present, consulting parents about the program as it plans to develop a new sex-education curriculum.

This consultation website contains an online survey as well as the scheduling of telephone town halls in every region of the province.

If you are a resident in Ontario, please submit your views as soon as possible on the sex-education curriculum via an online submission form or by email. If you do not have access to a computer then please express your views by writing to:

Please also participate in the Town Hall consultations when they occur in your area.

The consultation process in Ontario will close on December 15, 2018.

Your participation in this consultation is critical because the teachers' unions and the homosexual community are highly organized, and are now dominating the consultation to ensure the dreadful Wynne curriculum be retained.

Alberta

The Alberta NDP government outraged parents by passing the following legislation:

Bill 10 – March 11, 2015

This legislation mandated that every school create a Gay Straight Alliance Club and support that club's activities, if a single student requests it. These clubs are ideological clubs which promote a wide range of sexual activity incompatible with the majority of values of families in the province of Alberta. These clubs are not neutral, but promote only the values of one small government-preferred community, the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer) – while ignoring all others.

This bill was passed only hours after it was introduced. Neither parents nor members of the public were consulted about the bill which was rushed through in a single day.

Bill 24 – August 29, 2018

This bill prohibits any parental notification of their child's involvement with a Gay Straight Alliance Club. It also requires independent, religious schools to create a "welcoming, caring environment" by permitting a Gay Straight Alliance Club on a child's request and to create internal school policies "respecting diversity", i.e. acknowledging LGBTQ community demands, but making no reference to all the other communities in the province. This NDP policy is misleadingly called the "Safe, Caring and Inclusive Schools Policy".

Bill 24 mandates government control over the religious character of independent schools and destroys the parents' role in developing their own child's character and values. The determination of the NDP government in Alberta to assume control of the children was made clear in September, 2018, when Deputy Minister of Education, Curtis Clark, threatened religious schools with defunding and loss of accreditation if they failed to remove religious content or faith references from their programs.

These Alberta bills are now being challenged in the courts as contrary to the Charter of Rights.

Parents in Alberta should write to or email the following to express their strong opposition to these totalitarian policies of the provincial government.

In September, 2016, the then Liberal government in BC announced, without advance notice, the adoption of a mandatory controversial and explicit "Sex Orientation and Gender Identity" (SOGI) programme for all schools, including private schools. It was presented under the deceptive guise of "anti-bullying". The curriculum, however, was not about anti-bullying, but rather was a radical and dangerous social experiment, designed to undermine parental authority and values as well as their societal structures.

When making this announcement, the government also revealed its new "partnership" with the homosexual organization, ARC Foundation. This Foundation is a "charity" which funds the annual Queer Film Festival in Vancouver and the controversial "Out in Schools Program" which promotes sex activism and inserts identity politics into schools.

The ARC Foundation, by funding the Queer Film Festival, encourages students to attend it, thus exposing them to the politics of sex activism and hard-core pornography, which is central to the festival. The ARC Foundation made a grant of $125,000 to the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. The Faculty of Education is now obligingly providing training for teachers on the SOGI programme.

On July 19, 2017 an election was held in BC, which resulted in a minority NDP government, supported by three Green Party MLAs. The NDP party is, of course, now enthusiastically promoting the SOGI curriculum in BC's schools.

If you are a resident in BC, please raise your objections to the SOGI programme to the provincial Premier John Horgan and Minister of Education Rob Fleming,

The former Liberal government in the Province of Quebec introduced a sex-education curriculum for all Quebec schools to be taught from kindergarten to high school. The curriculum was, insanely, modelled on the sex-education curricula developed in Alberta and BC. This programme was to commence in the school year beginning in September, 2018.

This curriculum completely disregards the child's psychological development and blatantly disrespects parental authority. Same-sex marriage is introduced in kindergarten as a new norm. Sodomy is introduced in grade 2. This "education" came in the name of "inclusivity and tolerance". The child's innocence is of no concern. The latency period, described by psychologists as the period where the child has no interest in and no use for sexual information, is ignored. Children's rights are violated throughout the program as were those of their parents and legal guardians. This "education" (ideology) was imposed with no exemptions. Even private schools are required to teach the government curriculum and all religious accommodation is refused.

Important initiatives by whistleblowers, however, have brought to light the biased curriculum and pointed out the agenda driven material within it. Information, expert analyses, articles and presentations have been shared with parents, elected politicians and the public, divulging the controversy.

A provincial election was held on October 1st, 2018 in which a conservative government, Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) was elected with a strong majority under Premier, Franҫois Legault. This newly elected political party, unfortunately, has no intention of altering the route that was set by the previous Liberal government in regard to the sex-education curriculum.

If you are a resident of Quebec, please write to Premier Legault and to the Minister of Education, Jean-Franҫois Roberge, requesting that the former Liberal government's sex-education curriculum be withdrawn. Their addresses are as follows:

Twitter has declared war on biology by banning ‘misgendering’

November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – I recently did a little computer-generated test to help determine my “physiological age” as compared to my “chronological age.” (Thankfully, I was 8 years younger than my chronological age, 55 rather than 63.) One of the first questions I was asked was whether I was male or female. Why? It’s because – brace yourself! – men are biologically different than women. What a revolutionary concept!

But if a computer program is going to determine your physiological age vs. your chronological age, it needs to know something about your biology since, to repeat, men are different than women.

Medical science understands this.

Genetic studies understand this.

Common sense understands this.

But it appears Twitter no longer understands this.

So, Twitter has updated its terms of service, adding further information under the category of “Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.”

Specifically, Twitter explains, “We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”

Note carefully that last sentence, which singles out “misgendering” and “deadnaming.”

And what, precisely, do these terms mean? To misgender would be to refer to Bruce Caitlyn Jenner as “he.” To deadname him would be to call him Bruce rather than Caitlyn.

Twitter now forbids this usage, meaning that Twitter forbids you from being scientifically and biologically correct. To do so is to be risk being banned.

This is completely outrageous, not to mention irrational.

It turns upside down the very true statement that “biology is not bigotry,” determining instead that biology is bigotry.

And if you dare raise your voice in protest against this social madness, you risk being banned.

Who cares about your conscience and convictions. Who cares about scientific reality. Speech that falls outside the lines of transgender political correctness is absolutely forbidden.

I was filling out information on a website recently, and because it was ascertaining medical information, it asked whether I was male or female. (There’s that knotty question again!) But no sooner did I click “male” than a message popped up on the screen, assuring me that this company was “inclusive.” They simply needed this information for medical purposes.

That, my friend, is a picture of the upside down world in which we live today.

From the LGBT perspective, Twitter has done something wonderful. As explained by the Advocate, “Twitter has banned the misgendering and deadnaming of transgender people, earning it widespread praise from trans users and their allies.

“The social media platform updated its terms of service on this matter in October, but it was not widely reported until last Friday, Pink News notes. Twitter made the move in an effort to stop anti-trans abuse, which often involves using the wrong gender or old name in describing a trans person. Misgendering and deadnaming are sometimes used to out people as transgender, something that can put them at risk of physical harm.”

Certainly, I stand with the LGBT community in wanting to protect trans-identified people from physical harm. Absolutely. Count me in.

But I’m not about to sacrifice truth and science and personal integrity in order to comply with an increasingly radical social agenda. Not a chance.

The feminist in question, Meghan Murphy, had this to say about her ban: “What is insane to me, though, is that while Twitter knowingly permits graphic pornography and death threats on the platform (I have reported countless violent threats, the vast majority of which have gone unaddressed), they won’t allow me to state very basic facts, such as ‘men aren’t women.’ This is hardly an abhorrent thing to say, nor should it be considered ‘hateful’ to ask questions about the notion that people can change sex, or ask for explanations about transgender ideology. These are now, like it or not, public debates — debates that are impacting people’s lives, as legislation and policy are being imposed based on gender identity ideology…”

Unfortunately, today, perceptions trump science, and we’re informed that some men menstruate and that not all women have vaginas, and children in our elementary schools are subjected to special presentations designed to undermine the idea that boys will be boys and girls will be girls. (Perish the thought! Such thinking is bigoted and antiquated.)

So, in case you haven’t heard, “Leaders at a college in Michigan decided to cancel its production of “The Vagina Monologues” because it’s discriminatory, given ‘not all women have vaginas.’”

The decision was made at Eastern Michigan University “after the resource center conducted a survey, asking respondents about ‘The Vagina Monologues.’ Those opposed to the drama said they were concerned about the fact that the production excludes some women, namely those who don’t have vaginas.”

And who might those excluded women be? You can be assured the focus was not on intersex women with biological abnormalities. No, it was on men who identify as women.

Lest you question my logic here, a Washington Post editorial in March argued that women’s protests should drop the vagina symbol because “it leaves out some women — namely, trans women. Not all women have vaginas, and not all vagina-havers identify as women. A rhetorical strategy whose goal is universality falls short if it excludes some of the most marginalized women.”

There you have it.

And all the while, as Ryan Anderson pointed out, even the New York Times is revealing painful truths about transgender lives.

Again, I do understand that there are individuals who do not conform to biological norms, and to say it once more, I deplore the intentional harming of those who identify as transgender. And I know that there are trans-identified individuals are happy with their lives. That’s between them and God.

But for Twitter to forbid users from making biologically accurate statements about others is to declare war on biology, science, and truth.

Twitter’s ban on ‘misgendering’ trans people will be used to hunt dissidents: mathematician

November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – It was with great delight that progressive media outlets announced Twitter’s “pro-trans move”: The social media giant was formally banning “deadnaming” or “misgendering” transgender people. “Deadnaming,” it turns out, refers to mentioning the previous name of a transgender person: so mentioning the name “Bruce Jenner” would be “deadnaming,” and referring to Jenner as a “he” would be misgendering. Both are now forbidden.

Trans activists, who have been incredibly successful in their campaign to coerce people into using language that affirms the ideological premises of their movement, are celebrating this move: Pink News stated triumphantly that this sort of language is unacceptable, and has often been used “on Twitter to insult and erase trans people’s identities and right to exist.” One trans activist was quoted saying, “Excellent news everyone: Twitter has finally updated their TOS such that misgender/deadnaming a trans person is against the site’s rules. Happy hunting.”

The purge of heretics has already begun, with radical feminist Meghan Murphy getting shoved off the platform for questioning transgender orthodoxy (and noting its inherent ideological opposition to traditional feminism.) Trans activists frequently accuse those who disagree with them of attempting to “erase” them in order to justify violence against their opponents, Murphy noted, and physical altercations have already taken place between trans activists and feminists.

Murphy, incidentally, has been consistently targeted by trans activists, and has now been permanently banned from Twitter for making points like this: “[M]y issue isn’t with ‘transgender people,’ per se, but, rather, with men. There is a reason certain spaces are sex-segregated—such as change rooms, bathrooms, women’s shelters, and prisons: because these are spaces where women are vulnerable, and where male predators might target women and girls. These are spaces where women and girls may be naked, and where they do not want to be exposed to a man’s penis, regardless of his insistence that his penis is actually ‘female.’” If such ideas are permitted to proliferate, people might see how reasonable they are—which is precisely why trans activists want them silenced.

On Twitter, the probably soon-to-be-banned mathematician Eric Weinstein, who is himself a liberal, also objected strenuously to the new Terms of Service:

There’s something VERY suspicious about the social media platforms & their new treatment of Trans issues. I now believe it’s being fashioned cynically as the preferred weapon with which to hunt those who will never give a single inch of scientific ground to political pressure.

This banning of “deadnaming” is preposterous. We need to honor work attributed before transition! How does this differ from our need to discuss scientific papers published under a “maiden name”? Or contributions before a Muslim name is chosen (e.g. Cassius Clay, Cat Stevens).

This makes being a historian impossible. Further treating Trans M/F *exactly* the same as born M/F would be medical malpractice. Etc. So what you’re really doing is saying that biology, history, science and medicine are only allowed to exist at the whim of political activists.

This is like Caligula making his horse a senator. Any competent independent person knows that if they don’t treat the horse as a senator, they will be disappeared. So it’s done to select against strong independent clear headed thinkers by forcing them to identify themselves.

Weinstein is precisely right—Twitter is quite literally banning historical facts. Consider this: Under Twitter’s new rules, it is forbidden to post the following statement: “Bruce Jenner won the men’s decathlon at the 1976 Olympics.” Of course, it would be factually incorrect to state that Caitlyn Jenner secured victory at a men’s event, and Bruce hadn’t even conceptualized himself as Caitlyn yet. But under the new Orwellian rules governing one of mankind’s primary methods of communication—social media—these facts are now unsayable.

Not all trans activists are on board with this new state of affairs. One tweeted in disbelief that, “Twitter is now suspending trans people who acknowledge their own birth sex. Yes, this is true, not speculation. I, like every other ‘trans woman’, am biologically male. I, like many other ‘trans women’, take hormones to make myself look more female. I, like few other ‘trans women’, have had surgery to ease body dysmorphia. We are what we are. Twitter can’t suspend reality.” They can, however, suppress it quite effectively. Trans activists, of course, are already hunting down heretics to make life easier for the censors over at Twitter headquarters.

Twitter’s new rules are simply a sign of things to come. The social media monopolies now collectively possess the ability to tip the scales towards their preferred ideological allies, and they have given every indication that LGBT activists and social “progressives” are in. Christians, pro-lifers, and an assortment of old-guard liberals (including a few beleaguered feminists who, like Murphy, are questioning many of their previous assumptions at the realization that only those on the Right are willing to defend their right to speak), on the other hand, are very much out.

Social media now connects much of the world, and over the next few years, I expect we will see more aggressive, wide-scale purges that seek to eliminate those of us with traditionalist values from these platforms by way of new rules that are designed to eliminate our voices. I’d like to say that I have the answer to what we should do to combat this or stop it, but I simply don’t have one. As long as the social media giants have the monopoly on communication, they control the narrative—and it does not appear likely that this will end well for those who have a narrative of their own.

NEWARK, November 28, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – Newark’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin is in the limelight again after having reportedly confirmed rumors he recently housed in his rectory a young Italian actor for a period of time.

The Pope-Francis-appointed Cardinal admitted to American Spectator’s investigative reporter George Neumayr Nov. 15 that he “temporarily” housed in his rectory the movie star while the actor improved his English at a nearby school.

Speculations are now abounding that 36-year-old Francesco Castiglione — who runs an Instagram account with hundreds of shirtless ‘beefcake’ poses — may have been the intended recipient of Tobin’s “nighty-night, baby. I love you” tweet from earlier this year. Tobin quickly deleted the tweet and apologized, saying it was meant for his sister.

Neumayr wrote that he approached Tobin just as the U.S. bishops Fall Assembly in Baltimore was wrapping up, and asked him about the Italian actor.

“I wanted to ask Tobin about a story I broke in October: that an Italian actor, Francesco Castiglione, was living in his rectory, which had caused murmuring among concerned Catholics in his archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey,” explained Neumayr in his report, adding: “Some of those concerned Catholics had called me, suspecting that Castiglione was the real recipient of Tobin's infamous accidental tweet from last February in which he declared to someone unknown, ‘Nighty-Night Baby, I love you.’ An embarrassed Tobin had explained away the Twitter misfire as a late-night message to one of his sisters.”

“Was Castiglione living at the rectory until I reported it?” Neumayr said he asked the Cardinal. “Tobin responded that, yes, Castiglione was living at his rectory ‘temporarily.’ I asked him why. He said that Castiglione was taking ‘language classes’ at Seton Hall. Asked why he would provide temporary housing to a random Seton Hall student, Tobin couldn't offer an explanation.”

Tobin’s admission prompts more questions. For instance, out of all the students attending English language classes at nearby Seton Hall University, why was this one man singled out for the privilege of living with an American Cardinal?

Neumayr continued pressing the matter with Cardinal Tobin, digging deeper for answers.

"Was Castiglione the real recipient of the 'Nighty-Night Baby' tweet? Tobin stuck with his story about sending it to a family member. 'I sent that to my sister,' he said. I asked him if she could provide proof of that. That didn’t go over well. 'I don’t have to prove anything to you,' he said, as he started to walk away from me."

Tobin, the Archbishop of Newark, has personally welcomed an “LGBT pilgrimage” to his cathedral. He was named in Archbishop Viganò's testimony on Pope Francis' covering up for McCarrick as rising to power outside normal processes. Viganò linked Tobin's appointment to McCarrick. “The appointments of Blase Cupich to Chicago and Joseph W. Tobin to Newark were orchestrated by McCarrick, Maradiaga and Wuerl, united by a wicked pact of abuses by the first, and at least of coverup of abuses by the other two,” Archbishop Viganò said.

Catholic pundits are also questioning why a successful movie star stayed with the Cardinal during his English lessons instead of renting his own apartment.

Catholics who hold fast to truths of faith are now condemned as ‘fundamentalists’

November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – On April 18, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, presiding over a solemn votive Mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff, preached a homily that must have sent shockwaves through the 114 cardinal electors in attendance:

How many doctrinal winds we have known in these last decades, how many ideological currents, how many styles of thought! The thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves, tossed from one end to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, to libertinism, from collectivism to radical individualism, from atheism to religious mysticism, from agnosticism to syncretism.

He warned of the “dictatorship of relativism” and said that Catholics must not remain “immature in the faith, in a state of inferiority, as they run the risk of being tossed about and carried here and there by any doctrinal wind.” Most ominously, he observed that “to have a clear faith, according to the creed of the Church” is labeled by many today as a form of “fundamentalism.”

Still suffering from the post-Synodal stress syndrome that has become a common feature of life under the current pontificate, I found my thoughts returning both to this homily and to an article from 2001 that disturbed me at the time and disturbs me still: “Is There Such a Thing as Catholic Fundamentalism?,” written by a Catholic bishop, Peter Henrici, SJ, and published in the journal Communio.

When I first saw this article’s title, I thought to myself: Surely, Henrici, like Karl Keating and other apologists, is going to show how Catholicism and fundamentalism (as the term is widely used in the Protestant world) are opposed to each other.

Instead, Henrici explained the ways in which faithful Catholics are guilty of an intellectual and spiritual vice he called “fundamentalism” — a theme Pope Francis has also made his own. He was critical of those who want to cling to a plank of certainty, who cite the Catechism or other ecclesial documents without realizing that such things need to be “mediated” to them by their bishops.

Henrici seemed to allow unlimited scope for a “development of doctrine” limited solely by a positivistic Magisterium—that is, anything can become anything, as long as the Magisterium says so. He was even critical of seeing revelation as propositional, implying that one cannot formulate truths of faith in such a way that these formulations remain permanently and universally valid. Needless to say, we have seen this Hegelian-Darwinian conception of “fluid” or evolving doctrine return with a vengeance during the present pontificate.

What I saw in his article was familiar to me from my investigations of the Modernist crisis of the early twentieth century: an implicit negation of the very reality of the Magisterium, complemented by a denial that Catholic faithful are capable of certain knowledge of the truths on which our salvation depends. Theology, for Henrici, is too subtle and nuanced for a simple Christian’s grasp. We need professional “theologians” like him to tell us what the truth is; we cannot make an act of faith except at their prompting and by their expert conducting, as though the Church were the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan.

For Henrici, Catholics who insist on unchanging dogma are mistaken because, in fact, dogma is always undergoing “development.” But this is patently false. There are dogmas of the Faith that, whether clearly stated in Scripture or later articulated by a Council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, have always been taught in precisely the words in which they were first handed down. Sometimes the Magisterium has added further explanations or illustrations or applications, but the original language and content have remained stable across the ages, repeated and never contradicted.

We can see this clearly in such documents as the Profession of Faith of the Council of Trent from almost 500 years ago, or Pope Paul VI’s Credo of the People of God. Every dogma is a “fundament,” a true foundation on which the house of the Church is safely built, a rock on which the baptized can stand firm.

With exquisite irony, Bishop Henrici appeals to Vatican II in support of his position. But Vatican II has weight only if an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church has weight; and any such Council has weight only if all such Councils have weight. Trent will never be left behind by Vatican I, Vatican II, or any conceivable number of future councils, any more than Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, or Chalcedon will be left behind.

Catholics are, and should be, rightly ashamed of bishops and theologians like Henrici. The world episcopate is full of such soft Modernists. They do not lead their flocks to the green pastures of true doctrine, sound morals, and abundant liturgy; rather, they fleece them in church taxes or donations, while expecting them to be submissive to their aggiornamental gymnastics. We may console ourselves with the knowledge that this era of incestuously intertwined clericalism and secularism is rapidly nearing its end.

Let us return, then, to reality. To be Catholic is to be one who is given the privilege of following Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Who gives us the way of Christian morals, ensures that we know the truth about God and about man, and communicates divine life to us in the liturgy and the sacraments. Thanks be to God, there is nothing vague or relative about Christianity. Liturgy, dogma, and morals are glorious gifts from the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who liberates us from the sins and errors that destroy man’s intelligence, integrity, righteousness, and eternal salvation.

We re-commit ourselves, with humble gratitude and zeal, to the narrow but well-worn path of the Sacraments, the Creed, and the Commandments, which God has given for the benefit of the “little ones” who put all their trust in Him and cling to His unchanging truth.

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Vatican-approved Jesuit rector: I still want to see homosexual couples blessed and women ordained

November 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Father Ansgar Wucherpfennig, S.J. has recently been re-instated by the Vatican as the rector of the Jesuit graduate school in Frankfurt, Germany, in spite of his statements in favor of blessings for homosexual partners and female ordination.

As he now says in a new interview: “I did not recant anything.” Wucherpfennig also adds that it was Jesuit Superior General Father Arturo Sosa who handled his case and now even asks him to publish essays on these two controversial topics.

LifeSiteNews has reported that the Vatican – after an initial demurral to give a Nihil obstat (“nothing stands in the way”) to his re-election as the rector of the Jesuit school – has now accepted Wucherpfennig's simple statement that, while teaching Catholic doctrine, he will always present the statements of the Magisterium, but at the same time he will continue to question certain aspects of it.

Now, in a new interview, Father Wucherpfennig responds to this recent Vatican decision and makes it clear that he has not withdrawn any of his controversial statements in favor of the blessing of homosexual couples, as well as female ordination.

“No, I did not recant,” he said.

The priest explains that he only dealt, through his own German superior, with Father Arturo Sosa, the head of the Jesuits, and not with the Vatican. He adds that it was Sosa who gave him the mission to write about these controversial topics: “The General Superior, Father Sosa, however, has given me the task to make further research about these two topics [homosexuality and female ordination] and to further develop, with a creative loyalty, the Church's views.”

Wucherpfennig makes it clear that he told Father Sosa that he “as a Christian and academic” has the “hope that the teaching with regard to these two points will change and will widen.”

He also shows himself content with the current resolution of the conflict, saying that all of the involved parties “were able to save face.” “Both sides made conciliatory steps.”

When asked whether he already has plans about his future essays on these topics, Father Wucherpfennig responds, saying: “This is still too early. I anyway wanted to continue to work on these topics.” In light of the recent German clerical sex abuse study, he adds, “one has to discuss things openly, without taboos.” It is now time for such research, the priest explains. He has already received several requests concerning the question of how to interpret the Bible – especially the letters of St. Paul – concerning the topic of homosexuality.

Concerning female ordination, Wucherpfennig points out that “Pope Francis himself has already touched upon the matter of a 'female diaconate.'” In the German priest's eyes, the New Testament “allows for a larger variety of tasks and a greater range of kerygmatic and pastoral tasks for men and women” than what is currently believed. “Whether I will then write an article or whether there will be a book, I do not yet know,” he concludes.

Father Wucherpfennig says that there are still some resistances in parts of the Vatican, but then specifically praises Pope Francis and says that, under his pontificate, “there was a new opening up of the Church's debates.” He thus welcomes the decision in his own case, saying that it reflects the direction wanted by the Pope: this Vatican decision “goes into the direction that the Pope obviously prefers: that the Church moves forward.”

Pointing to other cases that are still pending in the Vatican with regard to other theologians possibly to be censored for their heterodox positions, Wucherpfennig explains that, in his case, it was not about suspending his teaching license, but, rather, only about his being the rector of the Jesuit St. Georgen Graduate School in Frankfurt. Commenting on the outcome after the tense recent weeks, Wucherpfennig says: “All is well that ends well.”

Katholisch.de – the news website of the German bishops – published a commentary on the Wucherpfennig dispute, in which the author, Pia Dyckmans, comes to a similar conclusion. For her, the positive outcome of the dispute shows that “the atmosphere in the Church seems to me to be changing very slowly, after all.” She welcomes the new “culture of debate” which permits the exploration of topics such as “homosexuality, celibacy, and the role of the woman.” She supportively refers to the German Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen who only this week has claimed that “the Church's sexual morality has to change!”

For Dyckmans, the Wucherpfennig case has become now a “Point of no Return.”

It is in this light that it is worthwhile to mention Father Wucherpfennig's own proposal to drop an oath for priests which had been introduced under John Paul II and which bound the priests not only to the extraordinary Magisterium, but also to the “so-called ordinary Magisterium, that is to say all writings, encyclicals, instructions of the Congregations.” “If the Vatican were to rescind it [that oath], I would speak about the change of culture,” Wucherpfennig explains in his new interview.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently commented in a LifeSiteNews interview concerning the Wucherpfennig dispute. He says about Father Wucherpfennig's own controversial positions concerning homosexuality and female ordination and his being permitted to remain the rector: “This is an example of how the authority of the Roman Church undermines itself and how the clear expert knowledge of the Congregation for the Faith is being pushed aside."

"If this priest calls the blessing of homosexual relationships the result of a further development of doctrine, for which he continues to work, it is nothing but the presence of atheism in Christianity. He does not theoretically deny the existence of God, but, rather, he denies Him as the source of morality by presenting that which is before God a sin as a blessing,” he said.

Cardinal Müller adds: the fact that “the recipient of the Sacrament of Holy Orders has to be of the male sex is not the result of cultural circumstances or of positive, but changeable, Church legislation, but, rather, it is founded in the nature of this Sacrament and its divine institution.”

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